Media Centre

The scrapping of plans to require new faith schools in England to raise intakes from other religions is a sign of an emerging, but undesirable and problematic 'New Deal' between faith groups and government, the think tank Ekklesia has today warned.

In light of a call today that Prince Charles should become the Defender of the Christian faith at his Coronation, and a feature by the Sunday Times asking whether it time to take 'God out of the state', the religious thinktank Ekklesia is urging a radical change in the way that the debate about religion and politics is framed.

Responding to the latest statement from the Church of England on admissions policy for faith schools, the UK Christian think tank Ekklesia has said that the Church's stance is ‚Äúwholly inadequate‚Äù and that ‚Äúusing church-going as a way of assigning publicly-funded school places is wrong and un- Christian in principle.‚Äù

The UK Christian think tank Ekklesia and the British Humanist Association have today written to Education Minister Alan Johnson asking him to ensure that their guidelines are explicit in requiring teachers to maintain a wholly scientific perspective on the matter of the origin of species by evolution.